The most often cited benefit of using blogs in the teaching of writing is an increase in student motivation. In a 2007-8 study conducted by a graduate student, fifth-graders in the Saugus Union School District in California felt better about their writing when working online and were more motivated to keep writing (Pascopella and Richardson 46). Paul Allison, a teacher in Flushing, NY, admits that "students who normally struggle to write are still struggling, [but] these students try harder [than they did using traditional mode of writing] because they know it is going public and others are watching" (Pascopella and Richardson 50). There are real people on the other end of the internet connection, and students are "more motivated to write for an authentic outside audience" (
Warschauer, Arada, and Zheng 222). One ninth-grader summed it up this way: "The pressure of knowing that the whole world is going to see everything that I write and post online makes me want to do my absolute best" (
Warschauer, Arada, and Zheng 223). In this case, the global aspect of blogging intensifies the motivation. It's not just a real audience, it's a real audience potentially from
all over the world.
Indeed the bulk of the motivating factors of blogging have to do with the presence of "other" people. Students like those mentioned above feel motivated by the presence of an authentic audience that they want to impress. Other student bloggers feel motivated by the responses they receive from their audiences. Elementary students in Florida who submitted work to a blog, to be read and responded to by college-age 'buddies' "remained motivated throughout the nine-week blogging project, primarily due to the excitement generated by each new comment from a college partner" (Ramaswami 4).
The motivation provided by comments from readers and other bloggers can even lead to an improved quality of writing. Anne P. Davis and Ewa McGrail found that their students were "motivated to write well on their blogs so that their posts could attract comments; learning about language usage had a 'purpose and a point'" (Davis and McGrail 76). Hansfield, Dean, and Cielocha discovered that fourth graders using Blogger "became more careful writers" and began taking teacher feedback more seriously when they began writing so that the whole class could see and respond (Hansfield, Dean, and Cielocha 45).
In these cases, the motivating factors of impressing an audience and receiving comments come together. Students recognize that high-quality writing triggers a better response, which in turn inspires them to write better, which in turn draws more comments. The benefits of this motivation cycle are likely to have repercussions beyond the blogs and even beyond the writing classroom. Comments on blogs also allow students to receive positive feedback from others besides their teachers, further encouraging them to do quality work in all aspects of life.
